


Mine Own Heart's Root

by AidanFrankenstein



Category: Nottingham - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Canon Trans Character, Eventual Smut, F/F, Lesbian Sex, Porn with Feelings, Revenge, Trans Male Character, True Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:47:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25189699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AidanFrankenstein/pseuds/AidanFrankenstein
Summary: After fighting with Richard the Lionheart in his war against Philip of France, Robyn Hood & Little John make their way back to Nottingham; disillusioned by war and realizing life as an outlaw without Richard's protection means Robyn and Marian can never have a peaceful life together, Robyn vows to finally kill Marian's father, the Sheriff. But the village of Nottingham believes Robyn was killed overseas with the king, and the lustful nobleman Sir Guy of Gisborne takes his opportunity to finally claim Marian as his own.Robyn must decide what risks she is willing to take to have the life she so desperately craves with her true love, Marian, while reckoning with the costs of vengeance, hatred, and violence.
Relationships: Maid Marian & Guy of Gisborne, Robin Hood & Little John, Robin Hood/Maid Marian
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This work is inspired by one of my favorite books I've read this year, Nottingham: The True Story of Robyn Hood, a queer retelling of the Robin Hood legend by Anna Burke. I can't recommend it enough; I missed the characters so much when I finished the book that I decided to write a tale of what might have happened after Burke's story ended. While I have strived to preserve the essence of the characters she established in her novel, as I've worked I've found certain aspects of their personalities I wanted to explore and play with that perhaps deviate a little from the source material. Due to the limitations of the story parameters I've set for myself, some key characters from Burke's story are only mentioned in passing, while others I have created strictly for my own use (although they are canon to the Robin Hood mythos). Thank you for reading.

Under the French spring sun, Richard the Lionheart lay dying.

Robyn Fletcher—known more ubiquitously as Robyn Hood, the most notorious outlaw of Sherwood Forest and now, almost inconceivably, a captain in the service of the king—knelt at his side. She herself had taken a lance wound in the battle and her left arm hung uselessly limp and bloodied at her side. But King Richard had been struck with a crossbow bolt straight through the belly: his fate was inescapable.

Robyn’s most faithful companion and perhaps only true friend left in the world, Little John, inspected the wound; black blood oozed out around the bolt. He glanced up at Robyn and the look in his eyes was unmistakable.

Gasping like a fish on the monger’s bench, Richard managed to ask “Bad, is it?”

Robyn solemnly nodded her head. There was no use lying. “If we leave it, infection will take hold within a day or two. If we pull it, your guts will spill.”

“Christ on His throne.” Richard’s eyes were unfocused, staring widely but unseeingly, into the canopy of trees of the French landscape. Everything was green, lit with warm streaming sunlight. Birds chirped and squirrels chittered. If it weren’t for the metallic stench of blood and the groans and cries of dying men around them, the afternoon might have been as peaceful as a picnic.

Robyn, sweat stinging her eyes, looked at the imposing gray brick edifice of Château de Chalus-Chabrol. Richard had told his troops there was Roman gold hidden away inside, but when they laid siege to the keep, they found their foes inadequately armed. A fortress laden with treasure would surely have been better guarded, with stronger, more capable defenses. Still, Richard’s meager army was exhausted and hungry, and the French force was skilled enough that the attack on the castle had amounted to a slaughter. She cursed the chateau’s shadow stretching over them. All this blood, all this pain. And no gold or silver to return to England with, no honor in all the senseless death.

“How long?” Richard muttered.

John, himself overtaxed from the brief battle, fell back on his haunches and wiped his face with his sleeve. “Hours. Days.” His broad shoulders lifted, then fell. “It’ll be blood loss or gangrene. I’m helpless either way.”

Richard’s bloody fingers reached weakly for the front of Robyn’s tunic. He was white as milk. “Robyn.”

She covered his hand with hers. “I’m here, my lord.”

“You have been a true and loyal servant. A wolfhound, fighting tooth and claw by my side this last long year.” His tongue flicked out, attempting to wet his lips. Robyn quickly uncorked her leather flask and dribbled water into the dying king's mouth. He gulped reflexively, but choked and sputtered, unable to swallow properly. Little John’s estimation was rapidly proving imprecise; Richard would be dead before sundown. “I wish,” Richard continued, voice fainter than before, “to reward you for your service. Name your recompense. It shall be so.”

Robyn lifted her forest-green eyes to John, who merely shrugged again. Ever the pragmatist, he knew there was no royal edict, no wax seal, no courtly proclamation in this foreign land that would hold weight when he and Robyn returned to England. They could ask for their likenesses carved in gold, for a rope to be thrown around the moon and it drawn down to Nottingham, and the king could decree it law—but once his last breath rattled from his lungs, the outlaws-turned-soldiers were as good as fucked.

Still, Robyn was ever the dreamer. She closed her eyes while she considered Richard’s offer. Instead of blood and sun-warmed irises, she smelled the lemon and lavender scent of her beloved’s skin.

John clambered to his feet. He didn’t really care what Robyn was going to ask for. All he wanted was to return home. Whatever happened between the dying king and his friend didn’t concern him. He meandered off, to confer with the remaining mercenary troops and to check the dead for any salvageable equipment or flasks of water.

Robyn sighed. Richard released his grip on her tunic. His breath came inconsistently. Robyn had seen enough dead men in her life to know that he was, for all intent, as good as gone. Still, she pushed his damp hair off his forehead and leaned close to tell him what she wished to claim as her reward for all the blood she’d shed in the Lionheart’s name.

“My lord,” she said softly, “in your generosity, will you give me my freedom?”

The king coughed blood into his beard and nodded.

“And will you grant me indefinite protection from the Sheriff of Nottingham? And the right to wed his daughter and inherit his land and titles?”

Again, though decidedly weaker than before, the dying man brought his head down and up.

Moving quickly, Robyn searched the bodies of several dead soldiers growing stiff nearby. Her left arm stung as she grappled with the corpses, rifling through their tunics, belts, and quivers. One had a small bible in his possession, from which Robyn ripped free a sheet of vellum that had a wide, empty bottom margin. She took out an arrowhead from her own belt-pouch and dipped it into the blood pooling where Richard lay. The words she scrawled were inelegant and poorly-spelled, and she had to continually re-wet the arrow’s tip after only two or three marks. But when she was done, she wrapped Richard’s fingers around the arrow and positioned it at the bottom of the parchment. “Your signature, my lord,” she said.

With a remarkable burst of lucidity, Richard swooshed and swirled his name across the vellum. He even let out a chuckle before dropping his hand once more down into the soft grass and leaves, though it was unclear what had amused him.

Robyn smiled thinly. “Thank you for your kindness, my lord.”

Richard’s eyes suddenly grew wide as saucers; an expression of utter panic and pain warped his face. He clutched blindly for Robyn’s hand. “Robyn, I don’t want to die like this! You must end it!”

“My lord, I cannot—”

“As your last act as my man-at-arms, I order you!”

Her stomach turned over; if there were food in her belly she would have vomited it up. But she knew the man was in agony and had only suffering ahead before death finally took him. She considered it for a moment, and knew that if the bolt were in her guts she would want the same relief Richard was begging for.

“Yes, my lord. Are you ready?”

But delirium had filled his senses again and he didn’t seem to even know Robyn was beside him. “Youth, I forgive thee,” the king mumbled. One hand flapped regally in the air. He was addressing someone only he could see. “Loose his chains and give him 100 shillings.”

Robyn bowed her head a moment. “God bless, my lord.” Then in one swift movement, she unsheathed her dagger and plunged it mercifully into the king’s eye socket.


	2. Chapter 2

As summer turned the air and earth warm, the long rows of the nunnery’s garden were at last green and full. Vegetables were finally ripening; Marian hungrily anticipated the rich stews—with perhaps a little roasted rabbit meat when the traps were successful—and the plump berries she could dust with sugar and eat raw, their purple juices staining her fingertips and chin.

The garden was the reason she had agreed to stay with the Prioress Tuck while Robyn went to war. Yes, there was the matter of her father the Sheriff, still slavering for Robyn’s blood and who was not above using his own daughter as bait, so Marian knew she was safest within the sanctuary of the nunnery’s walls. The forest of Sherwood was unsafe even with Robyn’s protection; there were plenty of brigands who would happily ransom her to the Sheriff—after doing with her body whatever they wished, no doubt. But Marian would have slept each night in a dank cave with one eye open and a loaded crossbow in her hands if that were the price to wait for her beloved’s return. When Tuck offered a small, humble cell—blessedly free of bandits and disagreeable rain—in exchange for Marian’s labor in the garden and kitchen, she hadn’t had to think twice. Her father couldn’t reach her and she was allowed to spend her hours idly pulling weeds, raking earth, and nurturing the tender shoots and leaves that would eventually give way to ripe fruit and vegetables. Living in Sherwood with Robyn had given her the freedom she had always wanted, but it was not easy to grow healthy carrots and broad beans.

Nearly two years without Robyn. Her heart burned and she could not stem the tears when she thought too much about her beloved’s absence, so she tried to think of it as little as she could. A letter had arrived only a handful of months after Robyn’s departure, delivered with a small purse stuffed with coin, to let Marian known Robyn was still alive, but since then not a word.

Marian had been furious when Robyn acquiesced to Richard’s order to accompany him to fight King Philip. “You’re not a soldier!” Marian had argued. “Nottingham needs you. The forest needs you. Robyn, _I_ need you!”

Robyn had smiled sadly and cradled Marian’s cheek in her bow-callused palm. “He gave me his pardon and lifted the bounty your father placed on my head. I cannot refuse his request. Besides, with the gold I’ll bring home, the families of Nottingham will not have to worry about food or shelter for a long, long time. And you and I can perhaps finally have a little peace. No more banditry. No more risking our lives just to eat. We can have a proper cottage in a village far away from your father instead of this little shack. My love, if Richard departs England again and I stay here, it will be only a matter of time before the Sheriff seeks my head again. It is safer for everyone if I go with the King.”

Marian, reluctantly knowing Robyn was right, had spent the rest of the day in chilled, painful silence. She regretted that now. If she had that last day together to live again, she would have never shut up telling Robyn how much she loved her, how grateful she was for their life together, how lovely her eyes looked in the sunlight, how safe she felt when her hands touched her, how proud she was of her bravery. They had made love that night without speaking, just a simple reaching for one another, taking their time, neither wanting to succumb to sleep. In the morning, while Robyn readied her horse, Marian had packed a sack of bread and vegetables from their little garden for her. Their last kiss had been deep, lingering, and salted by their mixing tears.

Perhaps the garden at the abbey wasn’t really the only reason Marian had agreed to stay there. Remaining in the little ramshackle hut she and Robyn had built in Sherwood would have been painfully lonely, even with Will and Alanna checking in on her from time to time. Where Robyn went, so did Little John. At the abbey, Marian got to chat with Robyn’s sister Gwyneth and play with her little son Symon. Once or twice a week, Robyn’s cousin Midge would come with news from the village and to collect barrels of wine Tuck made to sell. The companionship of her friends kept her from losing her mind with worry and grief.

Marian straightened and stretched her back, stiff from hunching over the rows of green beans with her hoe. In the distance, she could hear the clomp of hoofbeats, and as she strained her eyes at the horizon, a figure on horseback grew clear. For a moment, her heart raced with the possibility that it was Robyn at last. But as the rider neared, Marian’s hope evaporated; the figure was far too large to be the archer. The late afternoon sun glinted off the rider’s helm; Marian could now see his fire-red beard and the insignia of the house of Gisborne, and her heart dropped into her stomach.

Sir Guy brought his horse to a stop at a respectable distance from the crops and took off his helm. He was not an ugly man, even with his broken nose and pocked cheeks, but Marian found that arrogance and self-satisfaction turned his features repulsive.

“My lady,” he said with a cursory bow as best he could manage in his saddle. “I hope the day finds you well.”

Managing to keep her grimace internal, Marian curtseyed respectfully. “Well enough, my lord. What brings you to the abbey? Do you have business with the Prioress?”

Guy laughed, a sharp belly-deep bark. “Regrettably no,” he said, voice soaked in undisguised disdain. “I received word from France and rather than send a messenger, I felt it prudent to deliver it to you myself.”

Marian’s heart squeezed with panic; she felt her face drain of blood. She had to use every ounce of willpower to speak. “What news, my lord?”

Guy’s lips twitched beneath his the scrub of his mustache. “King Richard is dead, my lady. Killed in battle. His troops have disbanded. The army is effectively dissolved.”

A buzzing noise filled Marian’s ears and her face and hands felt numb, as if detached from her body.

“I suppose you’re thinking of that archer you’re so oddly fond of,” Guy continued. “Unfortunately I have no news of her. My men are quite reliable in these matters, and they tell me that anyone who survived Richard’s final battle has long quit France. Most are now returned to England. Some are in the taverns in Nottingham this very day, telling tales of their exploits.” Guy’s smile was wolfish and out of place. “I believe it’s safe to assume that Robyn Hood, my lady, is dead. Or else she surely would have found her way back by now. Richard has been dead these last three months.”

If Marian hadn’t been steadying her weight on the hoe, she might have collapsed to her knees in the dirt. Three months and only silence. Robyn would not keep Marian waiting for nothing… Guy was right. The only reason Robyn was not here was that she must be dead. Abruptly there was no breath left in Marian’s body.

Guy swung off his horse and removed his gloves as he strode to where Marian stood. “My dear lady,” he said with what he surely believed was great compassion, “I know this is painful. But best to hear it from a man who cares for you, is it not?” He lifted a hand out and touched Marian’s cheek. “You are so lovely, Marian. And I do care for you. With Robyn dead, I hope you will reconsider my affections and accept at last my standing proposal of marriage.”

As if waking from a deep sleep, Marian jerked from him, knocking away his hand. “You bastard!I thought you agitated me before but now I truly despise you as no one has ever despised a man. You are as a worm to me. Were you on fire I would not deign to piss on the flames!”

Darkness took over Guy’s features and the back of his hand smacked hard across Marian’s mouth. He grasped Marian’s throat, painfully yanking her toward him. “Cunt! I don’t know what witchcraft that disgusting whore cast on you, but I shall break it from you by hook or by crook.” As easily as a child might drop a rock into a pond, Guy forced Marion onto her knees before him and let go of her throat with a rough shove. While she gasped for breath, he reached into his cloak and withdrew a folded piece of parchment, sealed with a blob of red wax. “Do you know what this is, my lady?” he said with a sneer. “It’s from the desk of your father, the Sheriff.”

“His word means nothing to me. He holds no power over me any more.” Blood dribbled from her lip but she refused to wipe it away.

“Oh, you think not? You truly are a stupid woman. By law, I can take you as my wife and by God, that is what I intend to do.” Guy straightened, tugging his tunic back into place and running his hand through his beard in an attempt to calm it. “I am not a cruel man, Marian. I shall give you three days to pack your belongings and make your goodbyes with the Prioress. Then I shall return for you and once we are in Nottingham, you shall be made my wife.”

The blood in Marian’s veins was now ice. She did not get off her knees, but glared up at Guy with venom in her eyes. “Sir Guy, if that is truly your intent, then know this: in three days, I shall be dead.” She spat redly on his boots.

Fire flashed through Guy’s eyes but he restrained himself from assailing Marian again. A noise from across the garden caught his ear and he looked up to see the large, robed figure of Prioress Tuck approaching. She held a billhook in her hands, and it looked freshly sharpened.

“Marian?” Tuck called, keeping her gaze steady on Sir Guy. “Is everything all right?”

Marian took Tuck’s offered hand and got to her feet. “Yes, Reverend Mother. Our guest was careless. He is taking his leave now.”

Lips pressed into a white line, Guy stalked to his horse and mounted it. Leveling a finger at Marian, he snarled “Three days, my lady.” Then he spurred the horse’s ribs and galloped full speed away.

Marian waited until he was fully out of sight before she let the tears fill her eyes. She could feel Tuck’s hand tenderly on her shoulder, she could hear her query of concern, but she could not respond with anything except a bone-deep wail.


	3. Chapter 3

From the crest of the hill, Robyn could—at long last—see the distant hedgerows that surrounded the pastures of Nottingham. There was not a dirt-covered inch of her body that did not ache and throb in exhaustion. Still, she let herself smile in relief. _Home_ , she thought. _Marian._ Then she hurried back down the hillside to the sheltered stream where Little John was bathing his leg, wounded in a skirmish with highway robbers shortly after they had landed on England’s shore.

Respectfully, Robyn averted her eyes while John rewound the binding around his chest. While she herself had bound her own chest similarly to disguise herself as a man when her outlaw career began, John did it to push away his previous identity as “Joan.” He was only ever John to Robyn and their friends. His frame was broad and sturdy from his years of work as a blacksmith, his hands large and rough, his nose a hawk’s hook from being broken twice, his voice a practiced rumble in his chest, and almost no one ever noticed that he never seemed to need a shave.

When John was once again comfortably dressed, Robyn practically sang to him “Only a few more miles til Nottingham, my friend! Can you make it on that leg?”

John, setting to re-splint it, nodded. He had fashioned crutches from strong tree limbs and they stopped often to wash the wound and check for gangrene, but his hobbled pace was partly why the journey overland was taking so long. Fever had overcome him twice, and they had to make camp to wait for it to pass.

“If we hurry, we could make it by nightfall.” Robyn tried to keep her tone measured, without revealing too much of her eagerness. She knew John felt guilty about slowing her pace. They had even argued about Robyn going ahead of him, which of course Robyn refused to do.

John sighed wistfully. “Imagine. A real mattress. A meat pie. And a bloody lot of cold ale!”

Robyn offered her arm to help John to his feet. She grinned. “If I leave you at the tavern, I won’t see you for a month, will I?”

John chuckled as he arranged the crutches under his arms so they could set off. “Don’t get me wrong. Sherwood is a lovely place. I mean, it’s been my home so long now that I can hardly remember otherwise. But soldiering has shown me something new about myself, Robyn.”

“Oh yes? And what is that, my friend?”

“I’m growing old, I am very tired, and I crave a fucking roof over my head.”

Robyn clapped his meaty shoulder with a warm laugh. “With Richard’s word, Little John, that is exactly what you shall have!”

“I hope by all the saints in heaven that you’re right.” John squinted into the distance as they began their slow ascent of the hill. “With Richard dead, who knows what bloody bastard will take the throne now, if he shall be our enemy or our protector.”

Reflexively, Robyn touched the belt-pouch containing Richard’s final signature. “John,” she said in soft solemnity. “I’m going to kill the Sheriff.”

John looked sideways at her, momentarily startled. Robyn had given Marian her word that she would not murder her father, despite the cruelties he had subjected them to. Robyn’s love for Marian had outweighed her hatred of the vicious Sheriff. When she had had the man’s head in her bow’s sight, she found she could not loose the arrow; if Marian loathed her, Robyn could not have gone on living.

Still, all John said was “I see.”

“I’m not asking for your confederacy. I shall do it alone. But I do it for Nottingham and I do it for our freedom. As long as he lives, with Richard dead, we shall have no peace.”

John softly cleared his throat. “And Marian?”

A line twitched in Robyn’s jaw. “I’ll take whatever consequences come from it. Before the war, I had thought she and I could leave Nottingham. Perhaps go south to London. Or find a quiet village along the seaside somewhere.” She sighed. “But I know now I can’t abandon my responsibility to Sherwood. My sister and nephew need me. Midge needs me.” Robyn cast a teasing smile at John. “And you.” She chuckled at his blush, then continued. “I shouldn’t have left them for Richard’s debt.”

“To defy a king is to be clapped in irons.”

Robyn shrugged. “I defied the usurper King John, I defied the Sheriff, and since it needs be I will again. It was a fool’s errand we were on, my friend. I let my selfishness see only coin, as if gold alone could solve our problems. But our problems are like a hydra: cut off one head, another two sprout up.”

A long moment passed where neither of them spoke. Then John said “And do you believe, Robyn Hood, that killing the Sheriff will kill the hydra?”

Robyn did not look at her friend. She could see smoke rising from the houses of the village and imagined their little cook-fires, the stewing chickens, children chasing each other in the purple light of dusk. She wondered what Marian was doing now, if she was sewing a torn seam in a dress, or practicing with her own bow like Robyn had taught her, or if she was laughing with their friends over some tidbit of gossip.

“I don’t know,” she replied at last. “But I will find out.”


	4. Chapter 4

Marian’s lungs hurt, as if turned inside out; she hadn’t known it was possible for a person to weep so much. Tuck had done her best to comfort her and, intuiting her intent to take her own life, saw to it that all sharp objects were kept from her access and made sure someone was always at her side. Marian, of course, refused all offers of food and drink. She did not sleep.

“I’ll not let him near you,” Tuck said gently, stroking Marian’s hair like a mother with a sick infant. “You have my protection here.”

Marian couldn’t move or speak acknowledgment of Tuck’s words. If Robyn was dead, then so was she. Her body just didn’t know it yet.

A pounding on the nunnery’s door made Tuck jump. “Do not open it,” she ordered the sisters, but it didn't matter. A moment later the thick wood splintered inward as Guy’s men heaved a battering ram into it.

Guy filled the doorway like an ogre. His sword was sheathed but he kept his hand on the pommel as if to remind Tuck of its presence. Half a dozen men, all armed, flanked either side, aiming their weapons at the nuns.

“I have come for my bride. I am not leaving without her.” Guy withdrew his letter from the Sheriff once again. “By lawful decree, Marian, you are coming with me.”

Mindlessly, as if she didn’t have a will of her own, Marian rose to her feet. Tuck tried to stop her, but Marian shook her head. “I’ll go,” she whispered hoarsely. “You and the sisters shouldn’t be at risk.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Tuck said pleadingly. “By law you can have asylum here.”

Guy scoffed. “The Sheriff is the law.”

Tuck’s eyes were like knives on him. “God is the only law, you dishonorable pig.”

“Do you know what else this decree says?” Guy sneered. “It says I can by right kill any fat, loud-mouthed prioress who acts in obstruction of justice. I’ve never killed a holy person before, Reverend Mother, but you best believe that I won’t lose sleep over your head rolling at my feet.”

Tuck’s face turned red and she shook with rage. “You vile coward, you loathsome hedge-born parasite!”

“Silence your tongue, woman, before I cut it from your mouth!” Guy withdrew his sword and leveled it at Tuck’s head.

Marian, still moving as if through molasses, put her fingers the blade and gently pushed it downward. “Sir Guy, I will go peaceably with you. Sheath your sword. I pray you let me take a moment to say goodbye.” Then she turned to Tuck. “For all that you have done for me, there’s no thanks enough.”

Tuck’s eyes brimmed with tears. “My dearest daughter, don’t give up hope. Robyn—”

“Hush. One way or another, I’ll be with Robyn again.” Marian embraced the Prioress and pressed her lips against her cheek. “I leave you trusting only in that.”

Tuck swallowed hard and when she spoke her voice cracked. “Then go with God, child.”

“I go with the devil. But God will know how to find me.”

***

The echoes off the stone walls of the dim church. The dust motes that floated fairylike through the shafts of sunlight streaming through the arched windows. The cloying drift of incense. Marian felt numb to it all, as if she were experiencing something outside of her own consciousness. She was aware of the priest standing before her with a hefty leather bible in his meatless arms, of the nearness of Sir Guy of Gisborne at her side, of her father the Sheriff standing beside the altar, of the eyes of the witnesses gathered in the nave behind her. But Marion herself may as well have been asleep and dreaming.

“—as my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, for fairer or fouler, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us depart, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereunto I plight thee my troth.”

As Guy intoned his vows, Marian slowly turned her eyes to her father. His arms were crossed and resting on his copious belly. He looked older and more haggard than when she had seen him last. He briefly met her gaze, then flicked his eyes back to the haughty groom. They had not spoken since Guy brought Marian back to Nottingham. The Sheriff spoke to Guy as if Marian wasn’t even there. She would only stare at him, heavy-lidded. No matter where he moved or what he did, she let her eyes bore into him. He simply pretended she wasn’t there.

“—man and wife,” the priest was saying now. The smattering of guests politely applauded, some coming forward to congratulate Guy. They pushed past the zombie-like Marian as if she were another stick of furniture.

There was music and food and wine, but Guy was not eager to partake in the revelry. He nodded curtly to his new father-in-law, then roughly took Marian by the arm and quickly ushered her out of the church to his waiting horse. Marian knew that the only thing on his mind now was consummating the marital bed. For the first time in days, she felt something underneath the insensibility: disgust commingling with blind rage.

Although she allowed herself to calmly be led up the mounting block and arranged herself obediently in the saddle, inside her blood was seething. She knew what she had to do. And she knew how she would do it.

***

The Sheriff of Nottingham left the lively sounds of the flutes and harps and drums behind him as he returned to his dark, quiet house down the lane from the church. He’d given his servants the evening off. He cut a little bread and cheese for himself, filled a goblet with wine, and went upstairs to his private office. Although he had amassed quite a comfortable fortune in his service of King John, he was a miserly man and did not like unnecessary expenditures on frivolities such as torches. He lit a tallow candle and sat down at his desk to review the writs and overdue rents for the week ahead while he ate his modest supper.

As he munched the stale bread crust and studied the numbers on the pages spread on his table top, he heard a strange noise outside the half-timbered window behind him. He waited, and when he did not hear it again, he returned to his work.

There was abruptly a splintering of wood and shattering of glass.

“God’s blood!” The Sheriff lumbered as quickly as he was able to his feet, groping for his sword. He swung around to face the broken window, blade raised for battle.

A hooded figure stood before the the frame, bow with nocked arrow aimed squarely at the Sheriff’s chest. Though the figure was made of shadow, gray and indistinct, the Sheriff knew instantly who it was.

“So you’re alive after all.” The Sheriff slowly sheathed his sword. A smirk twisted his face. “You’re too late, Robyn Hood. She is wed.”

For a long moment the figure didn’t move, as still and dark as a gargoyle. When she spoke, her voice was tight and low, the growl of a bear. “You’re a liar.”

“The groom is with the bride in the marital bed as we speak.” The Sheriff chuckled. “What a foolish creature you are. To believe she could have ever loved you.” His laugh was a brutish bray.

Robyn lowered her bow. “Who is the groom?”

“Oh come now. Do you really believe I’d tell you? And that, if I did, you could have any effect on what’s been done? You held some sway over my daughter for reasons I cannot claim to understand, but she has come to her senses and followed the proper course of nature. In the eyes of God and the law, she is where she belongs. If you try to find her, to—I don’t know, I suppose you believe you’ll _rescue_ her—her husband will kill you as easily as one kills an annoying flea.” His lips pursed superciliously. “And God and the law shall be glad for it.”

In three long strides, Robyn crossed the room and her fist connected with the beefy flesh of the Sheriff’s face before he could react. Her dagger was out of its sheath and against his red jowls. A thin line of blood beaded like a necklace on his skin.

“Do it,” the Sheriff hissed. “Even if you kill me, you are the loser in this little drama.”

Robyn leaned a little more of her weight against the dagger; she could feel the skin beneath the blade start to split. “Tell me his name.”

Instantly there was a sharp stinging sensation in her abdomen, just above her navel. Shocked, she looked down to see a thin stiletto blade withdrawing, held in the Sheriff’s white-knuckled fist. Since he’d sheathed his sword, she’d carelessly assumed he had no other weapons within reach.

Smugness twisted the Sheriff’s face. He gripped Robyn by her hood, hoisting her weight up until her toes barely touched the ground. She swung her own dagger wildly at him but caught only air. Though immensely overweight, he was surprisingly swift and in seconds had her at the broken window.

“His name,” said the Sheriff, “is Sir Guy of Gisborne,” and he dropped Robyn down to the muddy street below.


	5. Chapter 5

“I’ve waited so long for this.” Guy undid the belt around his doublet; in the firelight of the room, Marian could see his erection straining against his trousers. She sat primly on the edge of the bed, watching him as a hare watches an owl, willing her pulse to not give itself away in her neck.

His chest bared a mossy nap of hair the same carroty shade as his beard. Like a viper striking, he grabbed Marian’s wrists, making her gasp a little. “Are you going to make me a good wife?” His voice was guttural; Marian couldn’t mask her shiver. Guy brought one of her hands to his crotch, forcing her to rub the hard length of him through the cloth of his trousers. His breath hissed through his teeth and his eyes fell nearly closed. “Yes, I believe you will.”

Marian yanked her hand away. “You disgust me,” she whispered.

“What did you say, wife?” Guy roared, spittle flying from his lips. The back of his hand struck Marian across her cheek, hard enough that her teeth clacked. “I’ll fuck that insolence out you and make you thank me for it!” He straddled her, pulling roughly at her dress, fumbling in his rage to take out his penis while simultaneously trying to force Marian’s legs apart.

Marian hurled her fingers at Guy’s face. Her nails sunk into the skin above his eyes and, with a belly-deep roar, she scored them fiercely as tiger’s claws downward. Thin ribbons of his flesh came away on her hands and blood spattered her own face. She’d never heard a man scream like that before, and although it was a terrifying noise she knew she could not stop yet. She thrust her thumbs at his eyes again and connected with the left one. Guy’s scream grew louder. There was a wet popping sound as she pulled away. Guy fell to the floor, holding his face and howling. Marian ran.

She found the bedroom door miraculously unbolted, and flung it wide. Two servants stood on the other side, shocked at what they were looking at inside the room behind her. Marian pushed past them, one rushing to his master’s side, the other clumsily grabbing for her too late.

Heart pounding hard in her ears as she raced through the manor-house, Marian blindly found herself in the kitchen, where she startled the dozing cook to wakefulness. Behind her came the shouts of the servant. Marian looked pleadingly at the old woman, who briefly eyed her breast exposed by the ripped fabric of her wedding dress. Without a word, the cook handed Marian a cleaver and pointed to the kitchen’s back entrance. Marian opened her mouth to thank her, but the cook put her finger to her lips and settled back down in her little pallet by the hearth, pretending to be asleep.

When the servant burst into the kitchen, the cook merely blinked her rheumy eyes and shrugged unhelpfully at his inquiry.

Cursing, the servant turned around and left the kitchen to search the rest of the manor’s rooms.

***

Consciousness returned slowly—and painfully. As her eyes struggled and failed to focus in the dark, Robyn’s legs and shoulders began to throb. _At least my back’s not broken_ , she thought as she tested her body’s ability to move. She realized she was not laying in the hay-and-shit-strewn street where she had landed. Her range of motion was limited by heavy iron chains around her wrists and ankles. The reason she couldn’t see anything was revealed to be a thick cloth knotted around her head. The puncture wound in her abdomen was oozing and her tunic clung wetly to her skin. She was astonished to be alive. But then it occurred to her: the Sheriff believed she was dead. Otherwise, he would surely have jammed that stiletto into her skull to finish the job.

An abrupt, rough jostling caused her bruised muscles to twinge, and Robyn perceived that she was being transported somewhere. She heard night birds and the clop of hooves; a cool breeze stirred her hair. As she bounced and juddered across the ground, she figured she was being drawn on a sled somewhere into the woods. No matter what the Sheriff had planned, if she could convince him she was in fact a corpse she had a chance.

Her ears twitched: the rush and burble of a river. The horse snorted as the Sheriff drew it to a halt. Robyn held her breath and willed herself to stay as still as possible, listening to him dismount and plod heavily toward her. She let herself be dead weight, despite the agony it caused as he hoisted her up by the chain linking her wrists. He managed to get her over his broad back like a sack of wheat.

Moving slowly and panting with the effort, the Sheriff made his way to the river’s edge. Robyn heard his boots splash as he waded a few steps in. With a final, noisy grunt he heaved Robyn’s body into the water, kicking her flank to ensure that she caught the current.

Face-down and sinking in the cold water, Robyn had to let herself drift with its will; there was no telling how long the Sheriff would watch her. But she would need air in only a few short minutes. She bounced off jutting rocks, knowing she was accumulating more bruises and cuts, praying she wouldn’t smash her head.

Her lungs were on fire; she couldn’t play dead any longer. The chains were heavy and she was exhausted, but she managed to fling her head out of the water and sucked in the longest gasp of air she’d ever taken. The cloth around her head had come loose, blessedly, making it easier to breathe and freeing one eye. She had gone downstream far enough that the Sheriff was nowhere in sight.

With a hard thwack, Robyn crashed into a wide tree trunk that had fallen into the river. The chain between her wrists tangled with gnarled branches. Robyn kicked her feet sluggishly to try to keep herself buoyant while she struggled to pull her arms free. Recent rain had swollen the river, and the strong current was nearly impossible to fight. Robyn’s belly ached with the strain, and she felt the muscles tearing, more blood pouring free. She was fighting the river and time.

Robyn took a deep, painful breath and yanked her arms as hard as she could, once, twice. There was at last a satisfying cracking noise as the branches gave way. Before the current swept her up again, she grasped the broken branches as holds and managed to scramble onto the top of the trunk.

She fell, shivering, onto the river’s bank and crawled on hands and knees to the bole of a great oak tree, which she propped herself against. She looked down at her abdomen; the tunic was stained purple with a wide blossom of her blood. With her wrists manacled, there was no way for her to tie a tourniquet around her torso. She pulled the cloth that had bound her eyes off her head and balled it up and pressed it hard against the narrow wound. It felt deep, but had somehow missed anything vital.

An owl _kewick_ ed somewhere unseen above her. The moon was nearly full, but mostly hidden behind broad gray clouds. Robyn’s eyes were heavy; she wanted nothing more than to sleep. But she also knew that she needed to keep moving. If she fell asleep now, she might not wake up again. She had a decision to make: to find her way farther into Sherwood and hopefully reach her little shack where Will and Alanna might be nearby, or to venture out of the forest and head for the nunnery, risking being seen on the highway. Tuck would have medicines and clean clothes. And food and water. She could easily send word for Little John in Nottingham, and for Will and Alanna. And, of course, there was Marian.

Her breath coming in shallow pants, Robyn struggled to her feet. She could only take small, shuffling steps, which was frustrating but it at least served to keep her from aggravating the weeping wound too much. She found a silver birch with some hoof-like fungus growing up the trunk. One she plucked free and tore a wide strip from the underside, which she pressed across the open puncture hole, as Marian had taught her; it would stop the bleeding and help clean the wound. Then she found a long, sturdy branch that she could use to help support her weight as she walked.

 _Follow the river east,_ she told herself. _Marian, my love, I’ll be there by sunrise._


	6. Chapter 6

Little John sat at a small, rough-hewn table near the hearth in the tavern called The Garland and Bells. He kept his cloak’s hood up to obscure his face in the shadows, even though it was a balmy summer night and the fire was well-stoked. A fat goose was on the spit, and the smell of its skin crisping golden brown reminded John of when he was a child, watching his mother mend clothes or dip candles while tending a scraggly little bird that would likely be the family of six’s only meat for a month. John’s mother had been an excellent cook, and could turn even the humblest of fowl and wrinkliest of turnips into a fine meal—or perhaps that was just John’s memory; hunger, as the saying went, was the richest sauce, and John had been a hungry child.

The tavern maid was a lovely girl with cinnamon hair and freckles; she smiled at John each time she came to refill his ale cup, and each time John blushed and flicked his eyes away. Then the maiden would then go to his neighbors’ tables and the bearded, boisterous men would tease and make bawdy jokes that brought full-throated laughter out of the girl. She would touch their shoulders and tilt a hip forward; her lips would shape a mocking pout, and she would wink before returning to the back room for more wine and ale. John’s heart hurt, wishing he could jest with her as easily as the other men did. And his soul seethed with jealousy when the girl took one of the men by the hand and led him toward the back stairwell.

Still, it was best to keep to himself. He was taking a hefty risk by drinking in a Nottingham tavern; he owed Robyn a great debt for letting him have a few hours to pretend to be an average villager. He had offered to accompany Robyn to the Sheriff’s house but Robyn had pointed out that one person was far easier to move unseen than two—especially if the second happened to have the blacksmith’s bulk of John’s frame and was hobbling around on only one good leg.

John felt inexplicably uneasy, though. He drained tankard after tankard of ale, and with each long draft his anxiety gnawed more insistently at him. Every person had their own debts to settle, their own paths to walk; no one in England knew that better than Little John. How much healthier he was now than he had been as an abusive man’s wife, how much happier he felt when a stranger acknowledged him as the man he was without making a painful error in identification. So he might never take an innkeeper’s daughter to an upstairs room for a quick tumble—at least he would never again have to answer to the wrong name or be expected to curtsy or submit to a man who disrespected him or had erroneous expectations of him. He swallowed the last of his ale, and hoped the girl was happy as she could be with her lot in life and that nothing bad ever befell her.

The goose was being taken off the fire, but John was no longer hungry; he was rather drunk and his legs twitched with restlessness. He was unused to sitting still for very long, even with an injury. So, humming an off-key tune he half-remembered his mother singing when he was small, he took up his crutches, paid his bill, and went out of the tavern into Nottingham’s night.

Up the lane, coming toward him, was a corpulent rider on a horse. Even at a distance and in the dim light, Little John recognized the Sheriff’s insignia on the sash across his chest, and he ducked into a doorway, hoping he had not been likewise spotted.

The Sheriff’s horse went past, the sled it pulled rattling. John shifted his head as surreptitiously as he could, and saw a bow and quiver on the sled’s boards. He knew those implements well: the bow was exquisitely crafted from polished yew, with carved deer-antler nocks. And even though it was dark and his eyes were unfocused by drink, John saw the fletching of the arrows protruding from the quiver and his heart dropped into his guts. No one made arrows like that in Nottingham.

Except Robyn Hood.

***

The water of the bath was growing cold, but Marian didn’t care. She sat unmoving as a statue, knees to her chest, arms around her legs. It wasn’t until she heard Prioress Tuck’s voice—as if from far away—and felt a linen towel coming down around her shoulders that she became aware that she was shivering.

“It was foolish to come here,” Marian said in a tired voice as Tuck helped dry her off. “This is the first place they’ll look for me. I’ve put everyone in danger.”

Tuck shushed her and drew a hooded cloak around her. “They will look in Sherwood as well, my dear. This is as safe a place as any.”

“I wish I’d killed him.”

Tuck cupped Marian’s cheek maternally. “Your soul does not belong to a murderess. And besides, how would you have done it? Dug his heart out of his chest with your bare hands? Though I imagine in your fury you might have managed that trick.” Tuck chuckled, and the warm sound brought a faint smile to Marian’s face as well. Tuck went across the room and poured two goblets of dark purple wine. “Fresh from the cask we corked end of summer two years ago. The first one you helped with,” she said as she offered a glass to Marian. “To family.” Tuck tilted her glass at Marian and took a long sip. Satisfaction spread across her lips. “Ahh…I do believe that could fool a Frenchman.”

Marian took her glass and sat down in a chair by the bathroom’s window. The room was a little luxury hidden away deep in the heart of the nunnery. The window, made of expensive imported glass, looked out onto the flower beds of the nunnery’s courtyard. Moonlight fell whitely on the blossoms, giving them a ghostly pallor.

A commotion came across the courtyard, though Marion could not see the source. There was the sound of unoiled wagon wheels and snorting horses. Human voices.

Marion looked at Tuck, panic widening her eyes. She hadn’t expected them to come so soon.

“Reverend Mother?” One of the sisters called for the Prioress as she came up the steps leading to the bathroom. “Reverend Mother! It’s urgent!”

Tuck cracked open the door slightly. “We need a moment to hide Marian,” she told the young novice.

But the girl was grinning, her face flushed. “It’s not Sir Guy,” she said. She leaned around the Prioress’s bulk and said to Marian “My lady, come. Your heart will sing!”

Tuck and Marian exchanged a brief look. Marian nodded. Tuck took up her billhook and led the way behind the novice to the nunnery’s large main door. The girl pushed it open wide so that Marian could see it was, indeed, not Sir Guy of Gisborne’s retinue nor the Sheriff’s deputies.

A canvas-covered wagon strewn with colorful banners, led by two donkeys, first filled her vision. She became aware of the people standing around it, all dressed in the bright costumes of mummers, acrobats, and musicians. One of them, a tall woman with hair to her waist, woven with ribbons and flowers, approached Marian, briefly curtseyed, and offered her hand. Marian briefly noted the woman’s prominent Adam’s apple and exceptionally large hands but thought no more of it as she said in a singer’s lilt “My lady, we come bearing cargo I think you’ll be most delighted by. Allow me.”

Marian took the woman’s hand and let her lead her to the back of the wagon. There, in the bed, streaked and peppered with mud and leaves, iron shackles laying on the boards beside her, was Robyn.

Marian flung her arms around her beloved’s neck, unmindful of Robyn’s warning to be gentle, and sobbed into her shoulder. Robyn struggled to lift her arms around Marian in return, wincing at the strain it caused her wound. Marian’s lips were against hers, then her cheeks, her forehead, her neck. “I thought you were dead!” she moaned over and over.

“So did I,” Robyn said with a small chuckle.

“My God, you’re filthy.” Marian sniffed and wiped her eyes, trying to stop her tears. It was then she noticed the blood. “Oh! You’re hurt!”

Robyn nodded. “I need to see Tuck at once.” And then she slumped forward into Marian’s arms, unconscious.


	7. Chapter 7

The strum and twang of a harp came to Robyn in her sleep. A woman’s voice, soft and plaintive. “Western wind, when wilt thou blow, the small rain down can rain? Christ, if my love were in my arms, and I in my bed again…”

Robyn blinked her eyes open, surprised for the second time that she was not dead. She was on a straw mattress, strong yellow daylight streaming into the room.

A woman, sitting in a chair across the room, smiled at her and stilled her instrument. “How wonderful you’re back with us,” she said. “Remember me?”

Robyn nodded. “You saved me on the road. Thank you.”

“I believe you would have done the same, were our situations reversed.” The tall woman got to her feet. “I’ll let Marian know you’re awake.”

Robyn tried to push herself to a sitting position but found it too painful and fell back on the mattress. She was half-undressed, with a wide swath of linen wrapped tightly around her torso. The spot where she’d been stabbed hurt, but there was no visible stain on the cloth; Tuck must have stitched it closed well.

“Thank God.” Marian came into the room and knelt gently on the mattress. “I don’t know whether to slap you or kiss you.”

“Can we start with the kiss while I’m unable to defend myself?”

Marian smiled and crushed her mouth hard against Robyn’s. “You must swear you’ll never leave me again,” Marian whispered against Robyn’s lips, “or else I shall hate you forever.”

“I’ll never leave you again, this I swear on all the saints and angels in Heaven.”

“Careful with your words, Robyn Hood, an oath like that might make you a nun yet,” Tuck said as she came in the room. “This is God’s house and he hears all”

“Does he not hear me in my house?”

“Knowing what you two get up to, I pray not. How are you feeling?”

“Very sore and very tired.”

“I made a poultice for the pain, but wait until it’s time to change the bandage.” Tuck handed Marian a small mortar bowl filled with vivid green mash. “It should also help ward off infection.”

“Robyn, what happened?” Marian asked, brushing the other woman’s hair from her forehead.

“I’m afraid, my love, you won’t much like the answer.”

A quiet darkness came over Marian’s face. She glanced up at Tuck, who cleared her throat. “I’ll see myself out.”

“My father,” Marian said in a tight voice. “How did he find you?”

Robyn sighed and put a hand on Marian’s. “You won’t like that answer either. It was I who sought him.”

Marian went stiff as stone, understanding what Robyn meant. Slowly, she pulled her hands away from Robyn’s and stood. “You promised me.”

“Marian, Richard is dead. The Sheriff will never let us have peace.”

“And so your solution is to murder my father?”

“Please lower your—”

Marian’s hand slashed through the air like a dagger. “Let everyone hear me! Let all of Nottingham hear! I don’t care! You abandon me to go gallivanting off to fight some pointless war and I have to suffer not knowing whether you are alive or dead _for two years!_ Two years, Robyn Hood! And when at last Nottingham believes you have been killed, I am dragged off to be made the wife of a most vile and cruel man, and expected to be grateful to be raped in the marital bed!”

Robyn pushed herself up on her elbows despite the stinging in her belly. “Wait, slow down, what are you talking about?”

Her lips trembling with an emotion between sorrow and rage Marian replied “Guy of Gisborne took me to the church. I am lawfully wed, though I did escape the bed.”

Robyn laughed, decidedly not the reaction Marian was expecting. “So,” she said, “the Sheriff wasn’t bluffing.” She pointed to her tunic and belt in a pile on the floor. “Inside the pouch,” she told Marian with a grin, “you’ll find my wedding gift to you.”

“That isn’t funny! How can you laugh at this?”

“Just do it.” Robyn’s eyes gleamed.

In the pouch, Marian found several arrowheads and a folded piece of parchment paper. She glanced quizzically at Robyn, who merely kept smiling. Marian unfolded the paper. A beautifully illuminated Bible page, and in carefully inked script the passage: _You are a garden locked up, my bride; you are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain. Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates with choice fruits, with henna and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with every kind of incense tree, with myrrh and aloes and all the finest spices. You are a garden fountain, a well of flowing water streaming down from Lebanon. Awake, north wind, and come, south wind! Blow on my garden, that its fragrance may spread everywhere._

Then Marian’s eyes dropped to the bottom of the page, the broad bottom margin filled with the hesitant, scratch-mark scrawl of someone still learning their letters. Marian recognized the handwriting as Robyn’s, having passed their first long winter together teaching her reading and writing.

On the page, Robyn had written: _Let this notice tell all who see it, Robyn Fletcher (Hood) and Marian Fitzwalter be wives in the eyes of God and England. Marian shall inherit the Fitzwalter property to share with her wife. Let this serve as pardon and protection by order of the King._ Under the crude, uneven lines was the unmistakably florid signature of King Richard the Lionheart.

“This can’t—” Marian choked, swallowed hard, and tried again. “This can’t save us, can it?”

Robyn lifted a hand toward Marian, who took it and fell into Robyn’s arms, trying to be mindful of her injury. Robyn pressed her lips fiercely against Marian’s forehead, stroking her unbound hair. “It has already saved me,” she whispered. “It took me out of the forests of France, across the sea, and back here to you, my heart, my love.”

Their lips met, soft and tentative at first but then with growing, needy hunger. Robyn’s heart pounded, remembering the long nights in foreign woods where she fitfully slept beside a small campfire and dreamed of the honeyed taste of Marian’s mouth, the feel of her fingers on her face. She had thought there’d be relief when they finally kissed again, but she was wrong—desire swelled in her like a storm at sea, ungovernable.

Marian sighed as Robyn’s fingers found her wet and open beneath the blue satin of her dress. It had been so long. Touching herself alone had brought no comfort, and eventually it only made her miss Robyn more so she had stopped altogether. As Robyn found a familiar pattern around her clitoris, Marian thought she might be brought off immediately. She gasped and buried her face against Robyn’s neck, trying to hold the pleasure back from herself. But Robyn was insistent and relentless, knowing exactly the rhythm and speed Marian needed, and, helpless, Marian came hard, hips rocking against Robyn’s hand, the sensation so overpowering that she thought—she hoped—it might never end.

“Do you forgive me?” Marian murmured against Robyn’s neck as the inferno of pleasure dimmed to a glowing ember in her chest.

Robyn stroked her hair, enjoying the silky feeling of the thick locks between her fingers. Her head felt dreamy and far away. “For what, my love?”

“For being so angry with you.”

“There is virtue in that anger. I was wrong to leave.”

“I could never hate you forever, you know.”

“If you hated me even for a day, it would feel like forever.”

“But you won’t ever leave me again, will you?”

“Where your heart beats, mine shall always beat beside it.”

The hum of summer insects came into the room from the garden below, the air still and warm and sweetened with the scent of blossoming hyacinth, honeysuckle, and freesia. Their legs entwined, Marian’s head on Robyn’s chest, her hand delicately cupping Robyn’s face, they fell asleep together at last.


End file.
